The Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) is delighted to announce that the MIFF Premiere Fund co-financed Cut Snake will be 2014’s MIFF Centrepiece Gala event on Saturday 9 August.
Also, MIFF’s newly-launched regional travelling festival the MIFF Premiere Showcase will host the Australian premiere of Kill Me Three Times.
Cut Snake is a sexy crime drama set in mid-70s suburban Australia from Matchbox Pictures’ Tony Ayres (Home Song Stories, Walking On Water, The Slap) and is produced by Trevor Blainey (Noise) and Michael McMahon (Home Song Stories, Lou, The Slap). Cut Snake tells the story of Sparra Farrell (Alex Russell), a young man trying to escape his past and make a life for himself in a new city. He finds honest work and becomes engaged to the beautiful Paula (Jessica De Gouw). But when the charismatic and dangerous Pommie (Sullivan Stapleton) tracks him down Sparra finds himself drawn back into a world that he had tried to leave behind.
Introduced in 2012, Centrepiece Gala is a celebration both of local filmmaking and of the festival’s halfway point; it is a red-carpet occasion comprising a world premiere screening and an official after party. The MIFF Centrepiece occurs at Hoyts Melbourne Central on Saturday 9 August and tickets are now on sale at www.miff.com.au
Kill Me Three Times, a thriller directed by Kriv Stenders (Red Dog) starring Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead), Sullivan Stapleton (Animal Kingdom), Alice Braga (On the Road), Teresa Palmer, Callan Mulvey, Luke Hemsworth and Bryan Brown, now moves to play exclusively for MIFF during the Festival’s re-launched travelling film festival – the MIFF Premiere Showcase. New funding from the State Government has enabled the return of a MIFF travelling film festival after an absence of six years. More details about the MIFF Premiere Showcase, including towns, venues and dates of screenings, will be announced in due course. For more information, keep an eye on www.miff.com.au/premiereshowcase
In addition to Cut Snake and Kill Me Three Times, the other MIFF Premiere Fund films in the 2014 MIFF Premiere Showcase will be: Electric Boogaloo, a feature documentary from Mark Hartley (Not Quite Hollywood) about prolific 1980s Hollywood company Canon Films; My Mistress, a love story from director Stephen Lance in which a strangely innocent affair between a young romantic and an S&M mistress becomes something more, starring Emmanuelle Béart (A Heart in Winter), Harrison Gilbertson (Blessed), Rachel Blake (Sleeping Beauty), Socratis Otto (I Frankenstein) and Leah Purcell (Lantana); The Legend Maker, a dramatic thriller from director Ian Pringle in which an aging forger needs all his cunning to survive; Paper Planes, a children’s film about one boy’s passion for flight and competing in paper plane championships from Robert Connolly (Balibo) and starring rising star Ed Oxenbould with Sam Worthington (Avatar), David Wenham (300), Terry Norris (Innocence) and Deborah Mailman (Sapphires); plus Galore, in which four teens navigate the flashpoint of adolescent relationships, starring Ashleigh Cummings (Puberty Blues, Tomorrow When the War Began), Lily Sullivan (Mental) and Maya Stange (Garage Days).
An initiative of the Victorian State Government, the MIFF Premiere Fund provides co-financing support for new Australian theatrical films that will world premiere at MIFF. To date, the MIFF Premiere Fund has supported more than 40 films, including Berlinale 2014 selected titles Tim Winton’s The Turning and Galore, and Cannes 2014 Directors’ Fortnight-selected These Final Hours.
Melbourne International Film Festival runs 31 July – 17 August 2014. The full program will be launched 8 July 2014.
e-Mini Passes and Passports are on sale now at www.miff.com.au. All single session tickets go on sale to the public 11 July 2014.